The Elephant Under the Bed
by ScorplinginTraining
Summary: Waige fans everywhere wonder when the writers will address it. I took matters into my own hands and this happened.
1. Chapter 1

THE ELEPHANT UNDER THE BED

 **AN: I'm really surprised no one else has written about this yet. At least to my limited knowledge. I started this before the last episode aired, but I've edited it to hopefully keep it as close to canon as possible.**

It meant nothing.

Of course it didn't mean anything.

She was just being…

Paranoid? Clingy? Insecure? Jealous?

A thousand other things a confident, fairly low-maintenance girlfriend shouldn't be?

Toby, a genius behaviorist, patiently walked her through all the logical reasons behind the offending dream. More than once. And he was right. She _knew_ he was right.

After all, she'd once dreamt she was making out with that guy Rakharo from Game of Thrones after binge watching the first season. Dreams were just a jumble of things a person thinks or hears or sees throughout the day. Toby said that too. How could she argue?

If all that was true, then why was Paige lying awake staring at the ceiling for the third night in a row even after she and Walter cleared the air?

For one simple reason. She used to have dreams about Walter when she was dating Tim. All. The. Time. She'd felt guilty too. Just like Walter did.

But her lingering uneasiness was stupid. Wasn't it? Everyone smarter than her said so.

Sure, Walter wasn't the most demonstrative man in the universe. He'd gotten tons better at expressing his emotions, however. He hadn't started spouting poetry or gushing about his feelings, but he seemed happy to be with her now. He was more relaxed and happier in general than she'd ever seen him. And he _did_ tell her loved her.

Sometimes. Mostly when they were in bed together.

So what if he mostly responded with, 'Reciprocated' when she said those words. It didn't matter. That was an affirmation too. Walter style.

She'd told him she trusted him. And she _did_. It was only in the middle of the night, when she was alone with her thoughts, the nagging doubts robbed her of rest.

Beside her, Walter was slumbering peacefully with a totally clear conscience, completely unaware of her nightly wrestling match with herself.

Hopefully his dreams were free of their neighbor, her 'friend' Florence, posing as his wife. His _wife_. Did every woman in the garage need to be married to Walter _except_ her? First Happy then Florence? Did she always have to be second choice? Even in dreams?

Ridiculous. Walter would say she was being ridiculous. She couldn't disagree.

Paige sighed and flung the covers off. It was no use. She might as well go make herself a cup of herbal tea and read for a while.

Walter's arm was around her middle. She lifted it gently and tried slithering out from under it without disturbing him. He mumbled something and nuzzled his nose in her hair, pulling her back against him.

"Paige?" He whispered groggily when she squirmed out of his grasp.

"I guess I should be grateful you said the right name," Paige snapped peevishly then instantly regretted it the second the words were out.

Frowning in confusion in the midst of wriggling to sit up, he asked, "What did you mean by that?"

"Nothing," She replied stiffly, knowing she was being unfair, "Go back to sleep."

"This isn't about my dream about Florence _again_?" It was his turn to sigh. He scrubbed a hand down his face and blinked wearily. "I thought we were past this."

"Just forget about it. This normal doesn't need to be reminded of how illogical she's being. _Again_." She knew she was being unreasonable, blaming him for something he couldn't control, which irritated her all the more.

She moved to stand up and he grabbed at her wrist tugging her back into a sitting position on the side of the bed. "I would never consciously betray you. I don't know what else to say to reassure you. I can't help what I dream, you know."

Paige was suddenly unbelievably tired of the whole thing. "I know that. But I can't help how I feel either. I keep going back to what Mark Collins said about us being too different. You want me for right now, but… What if eventually you decide I'm not enough? What if you figure out it would be better if you were with someone more like you? What if that's what your subconscious was trying to tell you in your dream?"

He gave her a long-suffering look and answered, "It's two o'clock in the morning, Paige. Do we have to do this now?"

Pulling her arm out of his grasp, she answered in a small voice, "I don't guess we have to do this at all." With that she stood and stalked to the bathroom, leaving an astonished Walter sitting up in bed probably wondering what just happened.

After a few minutes of oppressive silence, Paige heard the covers rustle as Walter got up and then his quiet footfalls growing louder as he made his way over to the bathroom door. Next came his soft knock followed by hesitant, muffled words, "Paige? I'm sorry. Come back to bed. Please?" When she couldn't find the words to explain her actions, he continued and her heart squeezed at the fear and hurt in his voice. "Don't break up with me over this, okay? We'll figure it out. I'm going downstairs to make tea. Then we can talk. All night long if you want. Whatever you need..."

Paige was too choked up to respond. When she heard his dejected, shuffling steps start down the ramp, she touched the door with her fingertips and whispered, "Please don't leave…" Not knowing if she meant it for that particular moment or if she was looking for a guarantee for the future.

After Walter left the loft to make the tea, Paige tore off a few squares of toilet paper and used it to dab at her eyes and blow her nose. She really didn't see what he could say to bring comfort to her. She'd thrown every argument at the issue she could think up for the last three nights.

Yet she knew she couldn't hide in the bathroom forever and hope the whole thing went away. Plus, her feet were freezing. So, she emerged and retraced her steps to the bed, dropping to all fours to rummage around under her side, looking for her slippers.

Instead of slippers, she found a discarded cassette tape. What on Earth was it doing under the bed? Paige sat back on her heels and held the tape up to examine it more closely. It was blank on one side. Then she turned it over and discovered it had the words 'For Paige' on the other side. It was written with indelible, black ink in Walter's bold handwriting.

Curious beyond belief and having no idea why her heart was pounding, she recalled her boyfriend had an old tape recorder on his desk in the loft. Completely forgetting her cold feet, she quickly retrieved it and popped in the tape.

When she pressed play, she only heard hissing. Feeling strangely disappointed, she shrugged. Then it occurred to her to rewind the tape first.

 **So tell me, is this a stand alone? Do we leave the happy conclusion to the imagination? Or do we need a chapter 2 resolution? Let me know your thoughts via review... Plus, reviews make life better. ;-D**


	2. Chapter 2

ELEPHANT UNDER THE BED

 **AN: You reviewers are fantastic! THANK YOU!**

 **Here is your conclusion since you asked SO nicely:**

He was a coward, craven and cowering in the downstairs kitchen making tea.

He berated himself harshly. Still, he dawdled over the process anyway.

Cleaning out her favorite mug. Letting the chamomile steep an extra minute. Cutting a lemon in perfect half centimeter slices. Lacing it with a splash of warm milk.

All the while his mind was racing for a solution, anything to be done to fix the problem, and coming up categorically blank. The situation was terrifying for someone with a 197 IQ who could both cause and stop a tsunami with theoretical math and science.

But he couldn't throw math or science or logic or research at this issue. Even psychiatry, Toby's imprecise branch of science, hadn't helped.

The alternative to fixing it was… devastating to consider. His brain refused to even contemplate that outcome. But somewhere deep inside, his stubborn, troublesome heart kept poking around that possibility in the same way a tongue can't avoid prodding at a sore tooth.

Because when Walter had finally surrendered to love, it was total. He held no part of himself in reserve. If he couldn't somehow fix this problem with Paige, he feared there would be nothing of himself left to salvage. It was an illogical conclusion, but he was nearly as sure of that end result as he was Newton's laws of physics.

He would just have to convince her somehow. That was all. He simply had to communicate how much she meant to him and hope it was enough.

Except it would be next to impossible. All his previous attempts failed. He'd been unsuccessful at finding the right words even with his vast vocabulary and the advice of all his genius and non-genius friends alike, all of them with better track records in relationships.

Walter slowly trudged up the stairs, the hand grasping the mug's handle was holding it so tightly his fingers were going numb. Yet even with the death grip, the steaming liquid inside of the mug trembled and quaked mirroring the anxiety inside of the man attempting to hold it and himself steady.

He emerged into the loft and immediately spied Paige, more precious to him than he feared he could ever begin to describe, sitting on the end of his… _their_ bed. That was the way he'd come to think of it in recent months.

He paused momentarily soaking in the sight as if it was the last time he'd see her there, taking a moment to memorize every nuance. Thinking it might well be the last time he'd see her in this private living space, his heart squeezed painfully.

At least she'd come out of the bathroom. That was a positive sign, wasn't it? Maybe she was ready to talk now.

"Paige?" Walter's voice came out in a rusty whisper. He cleared his throat.

She turned to face him and her eyes were simultaneously streaming and swimming in tears. His heart sank.

Until he noticed she was _smiling_ too.

In all his thirty-four years, Walter O'Brien had never seen a look quite like it on anyone's face. He had no idea what to do or how to react to it.

Looking around for cues, he noticed she was holding his old tape recorder in her lap. Paige set it aside and ejected a tape, holding it up for him to see.

Wait. Was that…?

Was she holding his lame attempt at song writing in her hand? He was sure he'd thrown that away.

Completely at a loss, he stood glued in the same spot trying to translate what was happening.

Wiping at her cheeks and dabbing her nose with a wad of tissue, she stood and walked toward him while he was still paralyzed into inactivity by confusion.

With an expression he could only characterize as wondering, she came to a halt almost toe to toe with him. Paige reached for the mug of tea Walter temporarily forgot he held, took it from his unresisting hand and placed it and the tape on the corner of the counter beside him.

"Walter, when… Why did you…?" Her questions were as bemused as they were incomplete.

Feeling unbalanced and a little embarrassed, the floodgates opened in his temporal lobe and the dammed up words poured forth in an unstoppable torrent. "I felt bad for disappointing you. The-that night your friend sang, I didn't give it a chance. I wanted to make up for it. And-and you said you, uh, liked when people express emotions through music. I wanted to try it because you said it's what couples do. You know, try to take an interest in things the other person likes. Happy said my first effort was terrible because I based it on an algorithm I developed using decades of love songs and she said since it was you I should try to be sincere and not sing about your booty even though I really _do_ think it's lovely and…" He paused for breath and wincing, gestured at the tape. "…uh, that inferior attempt happened. I'm sorry. I'm not a musician. You said later I didn't have to be something I wasn't. So-so, I threw it away. Or at least I thought I did."

"Oh, Walter," Paige breathed, laying a hand on his chest. "I'm so glad I found it. It's the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said about me. Did you mean it? Is that how you really feel?"

Bewildered by the awestruck look on her upturned face, he answered without hesitation, "Of course. I've never met anyone that effects me like you do. It's hard to explain my brain and how it operates. It's just so busy all the time. I'm unable to stop it. Previously I'd have to do something causing an influx of adrenaline to shut it down even momentarily. It can be exhausting. But being with you calms me. Settles me. Being close to you, intimate with you, allows me to power down, so to speak. I can't explain the sensation… except you are like comfort and home… for me. Now that I've experienced it, I'm not sure I'd ever be okay again without it. Without _you_. Does that make any sense?"

As Walter watched, fresh tears welled in those captivating eyes of hers, and he was terrified he'd explained it all wrong. Like he'd blown his last chance beyond repair. Until she grabbed fistfuls of his t-shirt and yanked his mouth down to hers in a searing kiss, scattering what was left of his wits.

"I'm guessing you'd never have the same experience with someone more like yourself. So, there really is nothing to this Flo thing at all then." Her cheeks were blotchy, her eyes puffy and the tip of her nose was red, but a hundred watt smile lit up her whole face and Walter knew he'd never beheld a more beautiful woman in his life.

Walter replied carefully so there'd be no misunderstanding, "I can't imagine a scenario where I'd find being with Florence restful, no." Shrugging he continued, "Besides, I'm so completely consumed with this-this enormous amount of love I have for you, how could I find the place for any more with anyone else? I do believe you're stuck with me."

Walter decided he'd finally said something right when Paige flashed him the same provocative look she gave him when she wanted to be intimate. This time he felt the electric current all the way to his toes and an answering hum of arousal throbbed low in his belly.

She took his hand and led him back to bed.

Grinning over her shoulder, she teased, "I think we may need some mood music. How 'bout you sing me the song about my lovely booty now? I might even be persuaded to show it to you."


End file.
